


We Go With the Snow

by chewysugar



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bickering, Childhood Memories, Coffee, Gen, Reminiscing, Snow, Teasing, Urination
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-30
Updated: 2017-11-30
Packaged: 2019-02-08 20:26:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12872364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chewysugar/pseuds/chewysugar
Summary: Too much coffee and childhood memories make for a quick pit-stop on the side of a snowy highway.





	We Go With the Snow

**Author's Note:**

> There's Hell, and then there's where I'm going for writing this piece of work.

Any man worth his salt knows that coffee is the one and only blessing bestowed upon man by the good Lord. While Sam and Dean can attest to the fact that the Big Man upstairs isn’t entirely Pollyanna levels of good the way some people think, they’re nonetheless thankful for the fact that a cup of bean juice will always be waiting for them at whatever diner, gas station or convenience store they pull up to.  
  
However, as Buddhism dictates, there cannot be give without take; light without darkness; good without evil; coffee without...  
  
“Fucking snow.” Dean’s got the wheel gripped in one strong hand; his eyes narrowed against the white fields and high snow banks lining the highway. His other hand is practically making love to the shapely body of an extra large coffee. He’s been guzzling back the java—complete with hazelnut syrup, three sugars and a generous supply of creamer—for the better part of an hour, and it isn’t his first of the day either.  
  
Sam grunts a response. He’s been watching the wintry scene in the grips of abject boredom. He doesn’t share Dean’s distaste for the fluffy white stuff, but going along the same stretch of highway for endless hours through the flattest part of the Dakotas is enough to lull even the most attuned of minds into a daze. It’s boring as all get out, and Sam’s own cup of coffee—large, black with only two packets of sugar—hasn’t quite kicked him into the realm of buzzed, artificial wakefulness.  
  
The Impala, being a tough girl, isn’t at all deterred by the snow. Even though there’s still just enough light to see by, her headlights cut through the early onset of late afternoon gloom like a precision laser; she roars and thunders against what Sam and Dean both know is Arctic chill; and all within the safety of her body, she maintains a blast of toasty heat, keeping her precious master and his faithful stooge in the utmost of comfort.  
  
At least on the surface level.  
  
Dean all but growls after ten more minutes of snow and empty highway.  
  
“Any other color, Sammy—any fucking color—and it would be easy as gravy. But no. Just have to have this solid white shit covering everything.”  
  
Sam gulps a large mouthful of coffee. “You got an ulcer or something? You’re bitching something mighty for someone who used to piss himself whenever it started to snow.”  
  
“I’m sorry, bitch, why don’t you try driving in this and see how long you can whistle Dixie over it?”  
  
“What, and rob you quality time with your one and only love? Include me out.”  
  
Dean grumbles something indistinct—although Sam can decipher the words “bitch” and “adoption” and “panzer four” among the bellyaching. But conversation lulls once again; Dean goes back to his diabetic-inducing coffee; Sam tries to stare at the empty expanse of Dakota sky and snow, finds himself drifting into idle fantasies about wardrobes, fauns and Tilda Swindon, and eventually retreats to the comfort of his own cup of joe.  
  
The tires rumble on; the sky grows darker; Dean flips Baby’s high beams on. Time ticks by as the air rushes past the car.  
  
“I did not piss myself,” Dean says.  
  
Sam almost snorts into his coffee, although to do so to a cup of such fine ambrosia would be nothing short of sacrilegious. “You wanna maybe learn to let it go, you big baby? It was a figure of speech.”  
  
“Well it’s also a fucking lie. I just...It was nice, y’know...always used to make me think about Christmas and stuff.”  
  
Sam narrows his eyes. Dean’s gulping down his coffee with indecent haste; and Sam knows that his brother is trying to find something to distract them both from having a conversation in the field of childhood, with its buried land mines of memory and its barbed wire fences.  
  
But Sam, discontent after hours of driving through what seems to be the same stretch of land, is having none of it.  
  
“I get this from a man who said that the Grinch had the right idea.”  
  
Dean swallows his last mouthful of coffee; the paper cup goes sailing, somewhat undignifiedly, into the back seat as Dean tosses it over his shoulder. “I was a kid, okay? I liked it enough back then.”  
  
“I don’t know why. We didn’t really have a lot to look forward to.”  
  
Dean’s eyes narrow, and his fingers curl around the wheel. Sam immediately wishes he’d kept his stupid mouth shut. Their memories aren’t all of pain and loss, least of all back in the relative innocence and ignorance of what little childhood they had. Even after the veil was lifted, they still were able to cultivate something fifty miles south of normal.  
  
Baby eats more frosty, salted highway. Sam finishes his coffee, stuck now in silent contemplation of his life, his failings and the tiptoeing approach of twilight.  
  
But Dean isn’t done yet; he gets stuck on these tracks more often than not. Sam has learned that sometimes it’s not only okay to let him wander the length of them, it’s what’s best for them both.  
  
“There’s just a lot of good back then, okay?” Of course he’s got that defensive timbre in his voice; he’s getting sentimental, outwardly at least. Dean Winchester can let the emotion show through, but only with a healthy supply of defensiveness to varnish it. Only now he’s in the land of nostalgia, there’s wistfulness added to the compound.  
  
“It was a fuck ton easier. Still rough and scary as shit, but we were allowed to, y’know...just kinda be kids.”  
  
“But Christmas, Dean?”  
  
“I liked the idea of it, Sam. Like, there was still snowman building and tobogganing and snowball fights with you and sometimes Dad and Bobby. We still got hot chocolate back then.”  
  
“With cinnamon and marshmallows,” Sam recalls with a sad sigh. Christ, but it feels so long ago that it’s not even as if it’s something from someone else’s life—more like something he saw on an old black and white movie. He doesn’t recognize his own old, puppy-fatted, long-banged, gangly-limbed face or his cracking voice as his own.  
  
And it hurts a little. He shifts in his seat as Dean continues to spiral, oblivious to Sam’s discomfort.  
  
“Fuckin’ A, Sammy. That cocoa that Jo used to make us was...God, it was like a miracle cure. Remember how we’d use to run inside after freezing our asses off? Just for a cup of that liquid gold.”  
  
“Among other things,” Sam sighs.  
  
Dean taps the steering wheel, again, as a distraction. He’s not about to run a mile with what he’s, Heaven forbid, actually feeling.  
  
Ever present for such matters, Sam picks up the baton. “I get it. It’s just a pain in the ass now. Snow, I mean. It’s shoveling sidewalks, and car accidents, and whiteouts. Back then we could do stuff with it and it was okay. We could make snow forts and facewash each other.”  
  
Dean laughs a little. “And piss in the snow. Remember when I used to write my name with it?”  
  
It’s so puerile; Sam should be annoyed, but he isn’t. This is a happy memory, no matter how immature it is. Because he does remember those times when they’d paint the white, white snow amber, giggling like idiots all the while.  
  
“I’m amazed my dick didn’t fall off from how cold it used to get,” Sam says. “Especially in Wisconsin that one winter. I was, what? Thirteen or fourteen?”  
  
Dean tsks. “Just when you were starting to appreciate what Little Sammy was good for, too.”  
  
“Shut up, jerk.”  
  
“Make me, bitch.”  
  
Levity cuts the tension; Dean’s hands relax on the steering wheel. Suddenly the expanse of endless snow doesn’t seem so daunting or tedious. With the heat blasting and the atmosphere in the Impala lighter, Sam let’s himself relax into the cracked leather of the passenger side. He doesn’t even mind all that much when Dean turns the volume up on “Sweet November Rain”.

For all intents and purposes, the remainder of this trek to who in the hell knows might be spent comfortably, even merrily.  
  
However, as is the case with every blessing, a spider quickly creeps into the rose garden. While both their coffees did the trick of keeping them alert and awake, the effect that the java has in their bodies is all but insidious—perfectly natural, yes, but nothing short of inconvenient in that here, in the car, in the middle of nowhere and miles from anywhere, is neither the time nor the place.  
  
Sam grimaces as he feels the pressure build in his abdomen. A quick glance to the side, and the sound of shifting leather on leather shows him that Dean is likewise faring none too better.  
  
The question isn’t necessarily if, but how long each can hold out before cracking.

Sam spends several agonizing minutes entertaining the notion that he can deal—after everything he’s had thrown his way, a full bladder is nothing to sneeze it. But what with the uneven bumps along the recently plowed highway and his memories of taking a leak in the snow with Dean, it proves all too futile.  
  
Fifteen minutes pass before Dean gives in.  
  
“Fuck this.”

The Impala smoothly glides to the shoulder.  
  
“What are you doing?” But the question is all concession—Sam knows exactly what this is about; he just doesn’t want to admit it.  
  
“I need to whizz before I piss my pants.”  
  
Sam scoffs.  
  
“Unless you’d like that,” Dean shoots back as he unbuckles his seat belt. “Didn’t take you as a wearer of the yellow hanky, but whatever floats your boat.”  
  
“I don’t even want to know how you know what the means.” Sam blinks. “I don’t even want to know how I know, for that matter.”  
  
“Relax. I’ll keep the heat running. I might be a while—I’ve got racehorse levels of juice to get loose.”  
  
“Just hop to it,” Sam grumbles. It’s not like this is the first time they’ve ever had to pull over for a call of nature—not by an artillery’s volley of a long shot. But with the cold fused to it, it’s not entirely an ideal situation.  
  
They’re on the side of open highway, with no tree cover; it’s at least fifteen degrees out, and while it’s not exactly bright as daylight, there’s still enough light left to see should anyone drive by.  
  
Dean flings the door open, and leaves it open. He takes about four steps through the snow until he’s just over the small ditch.  
  
Sam gawks even as he hears the unmistakable sound of Dean undoing his fly.  
  
“Dude, shut the fucking door!”  
  
“Don’t distract me, Sammy.”  
  
“This is fucked up.”  
  
“Close it yourself.”  
  
“I am not getting that close to you while you’ve got your hand on your Johnson.”  
  
“Please. Like it’s the first time we’ve ever wazzed together. Besides, you’ve caught me with my hand around my junk under worse conditions. Now shut up and let me concentrate.”  
  
Sam doesn’t think; just reacts. He lunges for the driver’s side door, forgetting that the he’s buckled in. The shoulder strap pulls him backwards, digging through his jacket and into his collar bone.  
  
“You piece of shit.” He scrambles for the buckle, trying hard not to listen to the liquid sounds of Dean emptying his bladder less than eight feet away.  
  
“Don’t be such a bitch, bitch.”  
  
Sam glares bloody daggers at Dean’s back. He can see Dean’s elbow moving as he continues to take what may possibly be the second largest piss of his life.  
  
It’s on the tip of his tongue to tell Dean to shove it, but this isn’t a situation that calls for any form of dignifying with responses or even acknowledgement. So he sits back, arms crossed, trying not to squirm as the sound of Dean marking his territory fills his ears.  
  
After an obscenely long amount of time, the steady noise of Dean’s mighty stream ceases. Out of spite of his own mounting need to let loose, Sam glances sideways and all but yells, “Hey! Only two shakes, you big perv.”  
  
Dean climbs back in with a shit-eating grin that would put a dung beetle to shame. “You wish. Not like I haven’t rubbed one out in public before, anyway.”  
  
“I’m well aware of that. Now close the door. I’m freezing my face off.”  
  
Dean acquiesces, but that’s as far as it goes. He makes a show of opening the glove compartment for a packet of wet wipes. The motor continues to hum, sweeping blessed heat through the car. Dean wipes his hands thoroughly, whistling the tune of “Here Comes the Rain Again.”  
  
“Cut it out.” Sam wriggles in his seat.  
  
Dean arches a brow, running the disinfectant wipe over each finger. “Don’t know what you’re talking about, Sam.” Then he launches into the chorus of “Yellow Submarine.”  
  
“Dean, I swear to God I’ll kill you if you don’t stop.”  
  
But Dean only smirks, tosses the wipe into the back seat with the rest of the trash that he’ll make Sam clean up later, and promptly starts to whistle TLC’s “Waterfalls.”  
  
Sam groans.  
  
“Aw don’t be such a little _piss_ -ant.” Dean smirks. “I don’t mean to _piss_ you off or anything, but gee _whizz_ Sam, if you’re not careful, all that anger is going to _leak_ —  
  
“Fuck this.”  
  
Sam all but kicks the passenger door open.  
  
“Hey!” Dean laughs. “Be easy on my Baby, you big baby!”  
  
Sam does Dean the courtesy of closing the passenger side door. It’s cold as balls outside, although not as bad as Sam guesses it could be.  
  
Ignoring the sounds of laughter from inside the car, Sam rounds the hood to the driver’s side. His face contorts in disbelief as Dean races to roll the window down.  
  
“Don’t mean to cause you performance anxiety,” he calls as Sam stomps the few feet to somewhere near the spot in the snow where Dean let loose. “I left you a little something.”  
  
Sam offers a backwards middle finger, and hurriedly unzips. Cold bites at his unit, although the warmth of his fingers provides some sensory relief to his skin. The pressure overwhelms; he’s close to the sweet, sweet precipice of relief, but just before he unloads almost a day’s worth of vent up piss, his keen eye catches sight of something about a foot away.  
  
The lights from the Impala shine on a patch of snow. There, written in the once undisturbed white, is the name “DEAN” spelled out in a large swathe of liquid yellow.  
  
Again, Sam should be irritated and disgusted, and a small part of him is. A small part of him can’t even believe that he’s staring at his brother’s piss-art. But he remembers those winters, back when they were both too goofy and juvenile to really give a bother—back when they could make lines in the snow and call it fun.  
  
Exhaust fumes fill Sam’s nose along with the crisp, cold air. He can feel the heat from inside the Impala radiating through Dean’s open window.  
  
With a small chuckle, Sam let’s go, gripping himself by the base and aiming as if holding a paintbrush. His ears fill with the noise of blessed release, and his body relaxes. This is pure caveman, something that thousands of years of evolution haven’t been able to take away from the artifice of the masculine.  
  
To his credit, Dean doesn’t give Sam the same guff that Sam threw his way when it was him out taking a leak. Granted, Dean doesn’t have the bother of needing to take a piss like the Dickens nattering at him anymore. But after an even longer, more drawn out amount of time waiting, Sam can feel his brother’s questioning stare at the back of his neck. It does little to stop him in doing what comes naturally, of course.  
  
Finally, Sam shakes the last lingering drops from the end of his John Thomas and zips up. Little Sam thoroughly satisfied at being back somewhere warm, Sam strides back to the passenger’s side and slides into his seat.  
  
Dean’s waiting with a twinkle in his eye. He hands Sam the packet of moist towelettes.  
  
“Thanks.”  
  
“No sweat.”  
  
Dean glances out the window as he rolls the crank back up. He pauses, his eyes bulging for a moment. He looks from Sam to the spot in the snow near the side of the car and then back again. Sam says nothing, cleaning his hand off with the same care and precision that Dean took only minutes earlier.  
  
“You’re kidding me,” Dean says.  
  
Sam shrugs, scrunches up the wipe, and throws it into the back with the rest of the trash that he’ll strong-arm Dean into helping him clean up later.  
  
Dean let’s out a whoop of laughter and guns the car into drive. “Always gotta one up me, eh Sasquatch?”  
  
“What can I say? I had to go.”  
  
“Had to go? If that’s what you were holding in for the last two hundred clicks then I’m surprised you didn’t burst.”  
  
“Impressed?”  
  
“Nah. Just pulling your leg. Your name’s shorter than mine anyway. Doesn’t count.”  
  
“Fair enough. Pretty sure I’ve got you beat where length counts, though.”  
  
“Whatever, bitch.”  
  
“Whatever, jerk. Just shut up and drive.”  
  
And drive Dean does, that little-kid glee still pulling at the corners of his lips. Snow flies under the tires, and the Impala rumbles smoothly back onto the highway. The taillights glow, illuminating for nothing but the night sky to see, the indication of two people who marked their territory here: the name DEAN in broad strokes of gold, and next to it, just as proud and frozen in liquid amber, the name SAM WINCHESTER.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm just going to tell myself that this story is cute, hang my head in shame, and shuffle off. 
> 
> Let me know what you think...even if you think I need to stop.


End file.
